Donald Trump survived a shooting Saturday evening at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania that killed one attendee and seriously injured two others.
The former U.S. president said he was shot in the ear, and his campaign said he recovered at a hospital nearby. Officials said the suspected shooter was dead.
Trump, with blood visible on his face, was rushed off the stage in Butler County after multiple shots rang out around 6:15 p.m. Saturday, prompting screams from the crowd.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that a suspect had fired “toward the stage from an elevated position outside of the rally venue.” Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger similarly said on CNN that the suspected shooter “was outside the grounds.”
Officials did not release the identity or motivation of the suspected shooter, and the FBI and Secret Service are investigating.
Trump took to social media to thank law enforcement, express his condolences to the family of the dead and wounded rally-goers, and provide his account of the incident.
“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” the former president said in the post. “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
Trump was in the first minutes of his campaign speech when the shots rang out. Trump put his hand to his right ear as Secret Service agents rushed toward Trump and called for him to get on the ground. Trump remained there for about a minute, surrounded; when he stood back up as agents supported him, he appeared injured and there was blood on his face.
“All the sudden shots started to crack, someone behind me appears to have been shot,” said Dave McCormick, the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, who was in the front row at the rally. “There’s lots of blood, and then the Secret Service were all over President Trump.”
“As they were walking away, his fist came out in a show of defiance,” McCormick said. Photographers captured that fist pump, which was quickly amplified by Republican allies on social media, as Trump was ushered off the stage and whisked away in an SUV.
“I saw the man standing on his own two feet and stick his fist up in the air,” said Jondavid Longo, the Republican mayor of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, who also attended the rally. “And, you know, he’s tough. He’s tough guy.”
Officials did not immediately release the identities of the shooting victims Saturday night. However, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) said his nephew was among them. The nephew was in the “line of fire” behind Trump, Jackson told Fox News on Saturday night, and was grazed in the neck: “A bullet crossed his neck, and he was bleeding.”
Leaders from across the political spectrum quickly condemned political violence in the wake of the attack.
“There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. He later spoke on camera briefly: “Look, there’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick.”
The White House said Saturday night that Biden had spoken with Trump and been briefed by law enforcement.
Trump survives shooting at campaign rally in Pennsylvania
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
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